Not Counting Canadians: Canadians are not sold on the U.S.-led "war on terror"

Canadians are not sold on the U.S.-led “war on terror”

48% of Canadians do not feel that Canada should harmonize its security policies with the United States, even if this affects our trading relationship

Fewer than half of Canadians (47%) agree, and almost a third (27%) strongly disagree, that for the sake of improving cross-border flows of trade, Canada should harmonize its security policies with the United States, even if it requires us to share increasing amounts of personal information with U.S. authorities.

That’s hardly a mandate for the Harper government to deepen the Liberal’s Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) commitment to security integration with the United States—with the belief that common North American security measures will open the
border for trade. The billions of dollars Canada has spent on border security, “no-fly” lists, joint Canada-U.S. policing initiatives, and other SPP initiatives, didn’t stop the Bush administration from recently imposing new tariffs on Canadian agricultural imports. Many of these policies did, however, essentially criminalize a substantial number of Canadians who do not qualify as “low risk” under SPP criteria, simply because of where they were born or the colour of their skin.

The Harper government is developing, with the provinces, so-called enhanced driver’s licences (EDLs) that will contain personal and biometric data in Radio Frequency Identification Chips (RFID) that can be read by Canadian and U.S. authorities at the border and airports. Canada’s federal privacy commissioner thinks the project is dangerous and unnecessary. Personal information, including nationality, will be stored in Canadian and U.S. databases, creating a de facto North American ID card once all the provinces have signed up. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says the EDL project will expand over time, which could mean RFID readers popping up anywhere, ready to check a person’s ID. There was no debate on this measure, although the Conservative government allocated $6 million towards EDLs in the 2008 budget.

In March 2008, a joint RCMP-Homeland Security SPP pilot project, which put U.S. security agents on Canadian maritime patrols and vice versa, was made permanent. The Shiprider project gives some U.S. Coast Guard officers law enforcement privileges in Canadian waters. This kind of cross-border cooperation is also set to expand, according to the RCMP, which is “partnering with a number of other agencies, including provincial police, the Canadian Forces, U.S. state police and immigration and border patrol agencies to also develop the capability to pursue criminals on the ground and in the air.” Again, Canadians did not get a chance to debate this initiative.

On February 14, 2008, Canada Command and U.S. Northern Command signed a bilateral Civil Assistance Plan that “allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation… during floods, forest fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and effects of a terrorist attack.” The Harper government says it is considering whether to release the full text of the military-to-military pact—a priority of the Binational Planning Group and a necessary technical component of the North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza,
signed by SPP leaders in Quebec last August.

There is clearly no democratic mandate for increased security and military integration with the United States.

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